R3284TTS Flyingscotsman

[Gary NZ]

Hi all from NZ I have a TTS flying Scotsman R3284TTS which has been great but has suddenly developed a shorting problem as soon as you press go (elink Railmaster) I disconnected the decoder and tried the motor with a battery all works ok cleaned and oiled as necessary and reassembled all sounds work OK but as soon as I try to move it shorts out again. Is it the motor??? I tried the local modelshop about someone to repair it but was told no one in NZ does repaires except under warranty??? I have also a Duke of Gloster TTS which had the same problem ( a long time back and the motor was replaced it still isn't 100% but usable)

Mod note - your multiple duplicate posts have been deleted.

[96RAF]

When you say short I presume you mean it actually trips RM into Stop, requiring an eLink reset, as opposed to the loco just not moving off.

The former indicates a fault in the loco, possibly motor if it only happens when the loco is commanded to move and not shorting whilst just standing idle.

If the latter does it react the same if sound is off.

Which power supply are you using with your eLink.

As this is likely to be a loco issue rather than an RM or decoder issue this is probably the best forum section for it.

[Gary NZ]

I have just tried it with no sound moves about 1/2 inch and stops and stops RM. I am using the power supply that came with the original elink set.

[96RAF]

Sounds like a loco problem. The only suggestion I can make is to test it with a meter, also revert it to DC by fitting a blanking plate or fit jumpers (pins 1-8 and 4-5) and see if it runs reliably on a simple track run powered by a 9v battery across the rails.

Folk have found many RM reliability problems have been fixed by using the 4-amp power supply. A Toshiba laptop 15vDC output power supply unit of the same type is also much cheaper than the Elite supply.

[ColinB]

What it might be is a short on the pickups that only occurs when it is on the track. I had an issue with a couple of my A4s I was building out of parts. It is possible for the pickups at the back of the loco near the pony truck (on these it is fixed) to touch the chassis and cause the fault. It only happens occasionally when the wheels move in and out. I noticed on DC when I was testing before I added DCC. What happened with mine was the protective paint had worn off, so I repainted the offending part. If the loco has pickups on loco and tender, lift the loco off the track but leave the tender on the tracks and see if the short disappears. I have also had issues with connector between loco and tender if it is the pin with connectors on but on this model I assume you have the 4 way connector between loco and tender.

[Gary NZ]

It does seem to be the loco, I attached another tender to the loco same problem so I guess it is somewhere up front. I checked the contacts seem to be OK will dig a bit deeper tomorrow. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[ColinB]

The other issue you also run into is Hornby didn't always wire that 4 way socket consistently. Sometimes they swap the connections round so lets say pin 1 goes to loco left pickup, pin 4 goes to loco right pickup, but on some pin1 goes to right pickup and pin 4 goes to left pickup so if you just swap tenders you get a short. Duchess and Britannia seem to be the main offenders.

[96RAF]

You say you are using the 1-amp power supply. When this overloads it browns out (i.e self protects by dropping its output voltage) and you can monitor this across the rail using a meter set on AC volts.

If you were powering a Select using the supply in the same conditions the controller screen would show you it is continuously trying to reboot. With eLink it will simply tell RM it has a problem and RM will lose control.

As Colin says not all locos are wired the same, hence why I suggested checking continuity left loco wheels to left tender wheels and right loco wheels to right tender wheels with the tender connected.